The disclosure herein relates to determining and handling one or more faults associated with implantable medical devices delivering pacing therapy. More specifically, this disclosure describes methods for monitoring the performance of pacing therapy in an implantable medical device and methods to apply fault-tolerance to provide therapy in the event of certain failure modes occurring in the pacing delivery circuits, leads, and/or lead/tissue interfaces.
Implantable medical devices (IMD) are capable of utilizing pacing therapies to maintain hemodynamic benefits to patients. Pacing therapy may be delivered from an implantable generator, through a lead, and into the patient's heart. Basic programmable pacing parameters include pacing amplitude, pacing rate, pulse duration, and pacing pathway (e.g., bipolar such as a lead tip electrode to a lead ring electrode, etc. or unipolar such as a lead tip electrode to IMD casing, or housing), which all may be configured to ensure effective therapy to the patient.
Typically, modern pacing systems are designed and manufactured to mitigate any failures, or faults, such as, e.g., in the pacing output circuits (or generators) and/or the leads. In the rare event of such failures, or faults, the ability to continue to provide therapy using one or more techniques may be beneficial.